House Foreign Affairs Committee Passes Resolution, Supporting Visits By Taiwan’s President To U.S. Anytime, Anywhere

In a unprecedented move, and with unanimous consent, the House Foreign Affairs Committee today passed the House Concurrent Resolution 136 led by Rep. Steve Chabot, calling for the lifting of all restrictions imposed on the visits by the Taiwanese highest-level government officials to the U.S, including the President. It marked the first time the House Foreign Affairs Committee marked up and passed the resolution after similar resolutions were introduced during the past two Congresses.

It is worth noting that both the Chairman and the Ranking Member of the Committee Reps. Tom Lantos and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen co-sponsored the resolution, indicating the importance and the strong level of support the Committee placed on this resolution. The resolution has 33 co-sponsors.

The resolution concludes that: “restrictions on visits by high-level elected and appointed officials of Taiwan to the United States, including the democratically elected president of Taiwan, should be lifted. And the U.S. should allow direct high-level exchanges at the Cabinet level with the Government of Taiwan.” The resolution has 33 co-sponsors.

Today’s effort to support Taiwan in the Congress follows the House passage last week of the amendment halting all government funding used to impose restrictions on exchanges between two governments. Unlike the amendment that touches upon restrictions on various exchanges between the two government, HCR 136 focuses only and mainly on the visits by the Taiwanese President and high-level government officials to the U.S.

FAPA president C.T. Lee, MD states: “The mark up of the resolution today is major landmark in the campaign to lift all restrictions on high-level visits from Taiwan and provides great encouragement to the government and the people of Taiwan in less than a week. It will lend further credence to the prevalent belief in Congress that Taiwan is a strong U.S. democratic ally and deserves to be treated as one. The time is now that the United States treats Taiwan like the fellow and friendly democracy it is.”